Five Things We Learned Today From Gregg Berhalter

1. After being fired by Sweden’s Hammarby IF, Berhalter has been traveling Europe learning
from different clubs.During his three-plus months of unemployment, Berhalter said he not only reassessed himself
as a coach but also began the process of trying to learn from some of the best.

“I took a step back and evaluated the year and a half work to see what was good, what could have
been improved,” he said. “After that I went throughout Europe and studied a lot of different clubs.
I met with a lot of different people in Europe and studied youth academies, I studied first teams,
I studied the structures within the teams and it was a good time. It was a good time to get
away."

Berhalter said it was his longest break in 20 years. He joined the teleconference from
Barcelona.

2. Berhalter will have control over the technical side of the club, but he will bring in
some help.After discussing such a move for some time, the Crew has restructured its front office. Mark
McCullers is no longer the team president and general manager, and Berhalter will assume the title
of sporting director as well as coach.

To help him navigate MLS’ myriad roster rules and the ever-complicated salary cap, he will hire
a director of soccer operations and hopes to do so within the next few weeks.

“That person will be responsible for working with me and taking advantage of some of the rules
to maximize efficiency in that area,” Berhalter said. “That’s something that I’ve been studying and
it’s obviously crucial to the success in MLS.”

In addition, Berhalter said he will lean on McCullers in the interim as he gets up to speed.

After Crew fans have lived through the “the goals will come” era, what makes Berhalter think he
can preside over a more dangerous offensive team here?

“I think that first of all, in Hammarby, (you have) to understand the situation a little bit,”
he said. “Every opponent that we played, that’s their biggest game of the year. We’re facing 11
guys in their box to defend and prevent goals. In the 15 games this year that I coached, we outshot
teams by 150 so we were an offensive power without actually getting the goals. That comes down a
little bit to quality and I believe that there’s quality within the (Crew) to score goals.

“Obviously we’re going to look to address that a little bit, but there are some qualities when
you look at guys who have put up some decent numbers. Dominic Oduro and Federico Higuain, there are
some guys who can score. I’m excited to work with these guys. There’s some things you can’t teach
players and we have guys that have qualities that you can’t teach, which is a good thing.”

4. He has been evaluating the Crew for weeks.Although he was formally introduced as coach today, Berhalter said he’s studied more than 15
of the Crew’s games and that he has a firm grasp on how the team plays and where it needs to
improve. Investor-operator Anthony Precourt said roster decisions have already been percolating as
talks with Berhalter have heated up, so he is expected to be able to hit the ground running when he
arrives in Columbus this weekend.

As for what he sees when he looks at the Crew roster, Berhalter said, “I see good pieces. I see
some good quality within the team. I think that the team can be relatively successful in a short
period of time because the pieces are there. There’s technical players, there’s players with speed,
there’s players with strength. It’s a good mix. Of course we’re going to look to improve the
roster, but I’m pretty pleased with what I see already.”

He declined to discuss specific players.

5. Bruce Arena remains a key influence on Berhalter.The Crew’s new coach played for Arena for three seasons in Los Angeles and said he has had
the biggest influence on his coaching career.

“He’s had tons of success in MLS and with the national team,” Berhalter said. “It’s his
man-management style, it’s his ability to make the hard things simple and to really get his teams
to perform when they need to. That’s something that’s been an inspiration to me and because of that
I keep in contact with him regularly for advice and to pick his brain on things.”